Sadness

Yesterday at church I learned that I'm being pruned. Not literally, of course, but spiritually. It doesn't feel very good!

I don't want to go into a lot of detail, but I can't just pretend like everything is roses right now. My move to New York set in motion some changes in my life that I'm just now feeling the effects of. Things are changing, and I feel as if I'm standing in an earthquake sometimes, just trying to make everything stay in place the way it was, but I can't keep some things from falling away, or being broken.

My family and friends are great comfort, as is the assurance I have within me that what I'm doing is right. However, it still doesn't mean I can turn off my emotions or stop myself from daydreaming about what might have been. I've had quite a few sleepless nights this week because all day I can distract myself with school and trips and projects, but when I lay down and try to sleep its as if my mind is a broken record of memories and thoughts. If only we had switches, like Bradbury's electric grandma, and could just shut ourselves off for the night.

I can't listen to music, because it all makes me sad, so I've been reading a lot of poetry lately. Edna St. Vincent Millay is my current favorite. As a woman, she obviously understands the kind of heartbreak I'm going through, and expresses it more beautifully that I could ever hope to:

SONNET

Here is a wound that never will heal, I know,
Being wrought not of dearness and a death,
But of a love turned ashes and the breath
Gone out of beauty; never again will grow
The grass on that scarred acre, though I sow
Young seed there yearly and the sky bequeath
Its friendly weathers down, far underneath
Shall be such bitterness of an old woe.
That April should be shattered by a gust,
That August should be levelled by a rain,
I can endure, and that the lifted dust,
Of man should settle to the earth again;
But that a dream can die, will be a thrust
Between my ribs forever of hot pain.

Sorry if I'm depressing you! I know that Millay is being melodramatic. Who knows--maybe someday, despite all odds, grass will grow on "that sad acre." And even if not, my heart will heal, and I'll be able to eat and sleep again, and the birds will come out and sing, as the clouds part and a rainbow appears. This will happen eventually, because yesterday a wise man told me this: "Why are you crying over the end of Winter? It was so beautiful, but Spring will be even better."